millsworks

You can file this under the blatant and shameless plug department but I just wanted to take a moment to mention TekSavvy, my ISP whom I went to after getting completely fed up with the bullshit of Rogers.

They have never let me down and have always provided the best service I could ever hope for. Their support staff are always helpful and extraordinarily patient. Their rates are low, their bandwidth is high and they continue to be strong proponents of Net Neutrality and competitive broadband access.

Bell, courtesy of the assholes in Ottawa CRTC, is allowed to throttle some of the traffic of companies like TekSavvy who resell the bandwidth they purchase wholesale from the telcos.

Despite this TekSavvy continues to provide me with exemplary speeds.

The CRTC rulings go beyond mere throttling and may endanger the very existence of independent competition to the big telcos. This is an onerous situation and will, hopefully, get resolved either through legal action, or a response from parliament to reverse the CRTC decision or perhaps at some distant time from now when the CRTC finally manages to get its pointy little head out of its fat pimply ass.

The decisions being handed down by the CRTC serve to maintain a dysfunctional monopoly and clearly illustrate the principle recently cited by Clay Shirky: “Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.”

In continuing to push back at the status quo of shitty overpriced monopolies like Bell, Telus and Rogers, independent ISPs like TekSavvy are doing the job of the CRTC – actually working for the rights of Canadian citizens.

This all sounds like a public handjob, I know, but I am very thankful to have TekSavvy as my ISP and just decided they needed to be acknowledged. If you are looking for an alternative to your current internet servce provider check out TekSavvy.

Cheers.

Full Disclosure: I did not get paid to make this endorsement but I do owe them money.

P.S. Here’s some posts from Michael Geist (along with some great comments) that cover this same territory:

• Canadian ISPs Fall Short In Meeting Net Neutrality Requirements

• CRTC Traffic Management Rules Apply To Wireless Too

• Liberals Call for Better Internet and Wireless Competition, Net Neutrality

• And this from Elliot Noss at Tucows